First Look: Josef Centeno to open Pete’s downtown Wednesday

Josef Centeno will reopen downtown’s Pete’s Cafe as Pete’s this Wednesday. The chef and owner of Baco Mercat, Orsa & Winston and Bar Ama has given the iconic lunch spot at the corner of Fourth and Main streets a complete makeover of the space and menu.

Centeno drew inspiration from the first cookbook he owned, “James Beard’s American Cookery,” for the menu. He’ll be doing his version of American classics with plenty of salads, including a Waldorf salad with pickled grapes, a potato salad with gherkin, apple, beets, egg and bacon, as well as crab Louie and Cobb, chopped and Caesar salads.

There’s also a 1/2 pound burger with horseradish and Cantal cheese, veal paillard, a smothered pork chop, confit duck leg, moules frites and shrimp Newburg.

“Pete’s is an institution - one of the first restaurants that opened down here [in the Old Bank District],” said Centeno. “And I wanted to do this concept of an early American bistro because I love to eat that type of food.”

Centeno and his chef de cuisine Derek McCabe (Osteria Mozza) will also prepare daily specials, with cioppino, pot roast, chicken with 40 cloves of garlic and baked salt and pepper spare ribs and more. There will also be specials, displayed on large black chalkboards, including James Beard’s recipe for a dish called ranch chicken with red wine. Andrew Zimmern, whose dad was a friend of Beard’s, gave Centeno the recipe.

Pastry chef Margeaux Aragon (Bacchanalia in Atlanta) will prepare cookies with chocolate chips, almond and Maldon sea salt, apple butter and gooseberry hand pies, thumbprint lemon and thyme shortbread cookies with huckleberry jam, banana zucchini bread with candied ginger, and whole grain muffins with fig jam. She plans on eventually adding laminated doughs with croissants and brioche to the menu.

For breakfast, Centeno will serve shrimp and grits, coddled eggs, house butters and biscuits and a sandwich with Taylor pork roll on a baguette with eggs and cheddar cheese in addition to Aragon’s pastries.

“It’s really good food that you always want to eat, but that is sometimes done so poorly execution-wise,” said Centeno. “It’s been fun to develop concepts we want to do, based off of what we want to eat.”

A coffee and pastry station in the front will prepare Stumptown coffee drinks, and there is a full bar with cocktails by beverage director Jerimiah Doherty.

In the dining room, black and brass trim outline stark white walls and mirrors. Small lights strung across the ceiling mirror the rows of hanging lights Fourth Street is known for.

New, low-back, black booths line the front of the dining room, making full use of the space’s large windows, and the old high-top tables have been replaced by lower wooden tables, giving everyone a view outside.

The main dining room will seat around 70, plus a private dining area in the back, and about 30 patio seats in the front.

The restaurant will be open for breakfast daily at 8 a.m. and close around 11 p.m. with a break between lunch and dinner.

400 S. Main St., Los Angeles, (213) 687-7015, www.petesla.com.

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